Thursday, October 11, 2007

Exactly two and one half months after I critiqued Behes unprofessional (some would say mind bafflingly idiotic) statements about HIV, he has finally 'responded'.

Just in case there is anyone out there that still thinks that the disgusting online/in person behavior of Creationists is restricted to anonymous commenters, Id like to note how Behe chooses to open up his oh-so-scientific rebuttal:

Although she calls herself a “pre-grad student,” the tone of the post is decidedly junior high, the tone of someone who is trying hard to compete with all the other Mean Girls on that unpleasant website. I’ll pass over all that and try to stick to the substance.

Michael Behe-- I have never encountered scientific sexism until right now. The first 6 years of my life I smashed Barbie dolls onto the ground and demanded construction sets and microscopes for birthday gifts, and no one said boo. I got on a bus to ride 600 miles to space camp when I was 10 years old, and no one said boo. I was one of 10 females at a nerd camp when I was 12 (100 students total), and no one said boo. I was one of the two students chosen from my state to attend the Air Force Academy science camp when I was 15, and no one said boo. My entire college career, nothing sexist from my professors or research mentors. My current PhD mentor has instructed me to tell him immediately if any of my professors sexually harass me, but it hasnt been a problem.

But today, reading Michael Behes wonderfully scientific and professional refutation of my essay, I get compared to a teenage girl in the movie 'Mean Girls.'

The professionals, the pillars of the Intelligent Design movement, have to throw sexism at grad students, because you are so right?

Ill deal with the rest of your post later, Behe. Oh, and I think its funny that Bill didnt warn you that it might be *unwise* to engage in discussions with me right now. Two and a half months, it took you to say something, and you couldnt have picked a worse time. You might want to call Bill up for a chat.

70 comments:

Behe writes: "Since there are so many more ways to break a machine than to improve it, this is the kind of task at which Darwinism excels. Like throwing a wad of chewing gum into a finely tuned machine, it’s relatively easy to clog a system — much easier than making the system in the first place. "

Yow. Tell that to some oncologists. "Relatively easy" he says. Of all the detailed toxins I know that bind to cell receptors and clog them up like "chewing gum", all of their binding surfaces resemble standard protein-protein binding.

He owes you a big apology, or risks permanent branding as a sexist pig, to go along with his ID stigmata.

I wonder how long before Lehigh calls Baylor for advice on how to clear up their little problem?

Or maybe Behe can get together with former Harvard President Larry Summers and sign up for some sensitivity training?

BTW - I tried to comment at Behe's Amazon site and couldn't do it. Maybe getting his ...male member...(small as it undoubtadly is) caught in the wringer is finally teaching Behe some valuable life lessons?

These creationists and IDers are cretens. We must all be very clear here. These guys are in no way interested in "debate". That would imply a willingness to change one's position based on facts and logic. These guys have no intention to do that. Their goal is to spread their ideology no matter what. They want their belief (religion) to be the only thing that is allowed to be considered. They are not engaged in a debate but a war. When you look at it this way you can understand their actions. It is all about winning with them. So tactics like character assasination, insults and whatnot are used in a desperate attempt to win. They end up making fools of themselves to those who know better. But to those who do not know better they often gain credibility. Our goal is to educate those who do not know better through these "debates" and hope they learn what fools these guys really are. Dangerous fools at that too.

BTW The current issue of American Scientist has an interesting article you guys might find interesting. It is titled "The Other Evolution Wars". You will need to access it through your institution or have a subscription to read the entire article.

A few of things he said jumped out at me, so I wrote a brief response. I'm really looking forward to reading yours. You ought to be proud, you have personally pissed off Behe and Dembski within the last couple of months. Keep up the good work.

Wow, 'Mean Girls' - what a hip cultural reference. At least we know what kind of movies Behe likes to rent in his hotel rooms.

Doesn't that film end with Li-Lo's character, who is a math nerd, in an inter-school math quiz on Prom Night? She is chosen by the boys on the opposing team to represent her school in the head-to-head sudden-death since they assume girls can't do math. She gets to attend Prom in her nerd team jacket and gold medal.

Advice to Behe: never preface your scientific rebuttals with "it's beneath me even to respond to a girlie-girl airhead, but here goes..." unless the science is on your side.

Honestly, a slight degree of sexism is easily apparent in a lot of the online Creationist junk (especially as regards Abbie), this is just a few hairs more obvious. I suspect that the blog format allows more opportunities to slip up.

FTK, you might note that, even apart from the facts that Sal had it coming and that middle schoolers aren't as creative about cursing as ERV, Behe would be responding to an ad hominem descriptive phase during an argument ... with an ad hominem that also prominently mentions her gender, which is known as "sexism". It does not give him high ground, even barring the fact that there is no particular reason to be formally academic unless you want to sound serious.

Behe whines about Jerry Coyne's review of the book thusly - "The Coyne review is one very long mishmash of ad hominem, argument from authority, misunderstanding, and question begging." Then he proceeds to blast ERV with ad hominems in his response to her review.

What next? When will these folks find a real argument, and will they recognize it if they see it?

Since a propoganda campaign seems called for, we can be grateful for all this ammunition. I have a vision of a thirty second clip, cutting back and forth between Dembski foaming incomprehensibly and Behe reading the opening of this response, and clips of ERV giving a lecture on the evolution of HIV. Then close it with big, bold sans serif text: "Who do you want teaching your kids?"

"Although she calls herself a “pre-grad student,” the tone of the post is decidedly junior high, the tone of someone who is trying hard to compete with all the other Mean Girls on that unpleasant website. I’ll pass over all that and try to stick to the substance."

If we change she to he, would it still be considered sexist?

"Although he calls himself a “pre-grad student”, the tone of the post is decidedly junior high, the tone of someone who is trying hard to compete with the other Mean Boys on that unpleasant website. I’ll pass over all that and try to stick to the substance."

Hmmm....doesn't seem that way to me.

Honestly, I couldn't find a thing "sexist" about your earlier conversations with those from UD.

Molly Ivins came up with "Republican Forgetful Syndrome" to describe the crooks testifying before Congress in the Iran-Contra affair who suddenly couldn't remember a thing about who did what or said anything to anybody.

We need "Right-wing Oblivious Syndrome" or something similar to describe the good-old-boys and friends who still think a bit of goosing is just a friendly greeting from a man to a woman.

I'm not certain why Dr. Behe feels the need to be so snide and condescending.

He seems to be guilty of the same elitism he and his cohorts accuse "Big Science" of. "Big Science" allegedly becomes huffy when creationists "challenge" their "idol," and Dr. Behe becomes apoplectic when an undergrad challenges his shoddy work.

What's funnier is that, from my interpretation, he's setting too high a bar for the evolution of HIV - what, precisely, would be the expected level of change to satisfy him? Does he want it to become an entirely new organism?

The fact that changing the gender makes it basically not sexist doesn't mean it's not sexist. Changing the race in racist jokes makes them incoherent in their initial meaning, also, but that doesn't mean they're inoffensive.

For instance, Family Guy. "I Need a Jew". Hilarious song. Offensive, antisemitic (I believe ironically so, but) and loses all initial meaning if it's anyone but a Jew he says he needs. Nigger jokes aren't even coherent if you change the topic of discussion.

If you want to add to it, apart from having called everyone on the site (I guess he means blogspot?) immature and girls as part of an insult, he referenced a movie about superficial, airheaded and hyper-"feminine" girls while doing it. This is what the caps in "Mean Girls" denotes. Much like when I say "uncle Tom" it doesn't just mean an uncle named Tom ...

I'll stop actually explaining now, and just say I missed the good old days of elementary school when being called a girl was an awesome insult used by normal people. I'm glad work is being done to bring 'em back.

FtK's point is that Abbie was mean and sarcastic to Behe in her original review. It might be valid, although one could also point to many instances of FtK being mean and sarcastic in her own right.

What Ftk fails to comprehend is that sometimes meanness and sarcasm are well-deserved. If you read and understand Sal's exchanges with Abbie (and also his uncommentable gloatings on Uncommon Descent), you will understand that he certainly deserved what he got, and probably a lot more.

But this is about Behe. Does he deserve sarcastic treatment from a fellow scientist? Yep. He has joined a small group of folks who repeatedly lie about their science, and, as has been explained before, there is no greater sin in science. So he has been banned from the tribe, and shunned just as surely as if he were a pregnant Shaker woman, or a gay Republican senator. Shunning is cruel, no doubt. But sometimes it is deserved, and in Behe's case, he's earned it.

But let's back off on the psychology and personal posts, and re-focus on the science. Has Behe responded to ERV's scientific criticism? Not even remotely. His excuse about "I won't discuss protein-protein interactions in foreign proteins" is arbitrary and illogical. Novel protein-protein interactions that are beneficial to the organism are evidence of evolution, regardless of the circumstances in which they evolve. It is telling that Behe trumpets a lack of evidence for evolution when P. falciparum fails to do this, but refuses to consider it to be evidence of evolution when HIV succeeds in doing exactly that.

You have to look at all the evidence in science; you aren't allowed to arbitrarily exclude data that deep-sixes your hypothesis. If the book had been peer-reviewed, a competent reviewer would have pointed out this omission. Since he chose to bypass peer-review, he deserves the painful and public peer-review that he is getting now.

So enough with the gossip and chatter about personalities and sarcasm and meanness. Let's stick to the science, and Behe loses every time.

I have a vision of a thirty second clip, cutting back and forth between Dembski foaming incomprehensibly and Behe reading the opening of this response, and clips of ERV giving a lecture on the evolution of HIV.

"Although she calls herself a “pre-grad student,” the tone of the post is decidedly junior high, the tone of someone who is trying hard to compete with all the other Mean Girls on that unpleasant website. I’ll pass over all that and try to stick to the substance."

That is proof positive right there that your argument or position is weak. Which it definitely is.

You know, the typical decently well-educated layman (especially one with a technical background in an area in which design itself figures prominently, such as engineering) sees contending arguments on both sides of the question. Perhaps he can't decide based purely on the scientific arguments themselves. So he has to use other criteria. One of them would be to evaluate which side comes across as a bunch of arrogant, flaming a-holes, filled with seething contempt for the opinions of others. And then he has to decide accordingly. This is one of the reasons ID is not going away. You guys ought to think about that...

First, my compliments on your posts, especially how you handled the Amazon situation. It is going to be difficult to delete your comment as either inappropriate or irrelevent.

I have one complaint. Why now? Why did this have to happen now when I am too busy to read everything and get involved.

I am more the engineer than the biologist. Here is my quick interjection into this. I hope it will add a new angle to the discussion. I couldn't post it since I haven't bought anything from amazon with this name...

Dr. Behe,

Taking advantage of the ability to comment here, I wish to publicly ask you something that has bothered me. You have focused on the microscopic level to suggest that randomness is insufficient to explain observations. It is obvious that you are dealing at a level of detail that involves quantum mechanical effects. Experiments have shown quantum effects aren't random. Why was there so little discussion of quantum physics in your book Edge of Evolution when many scientists have been linking quantum physics to life processes. For example, Stapp, Patel and those at Berkeley lab who, this year, demonstrated photosynthesis is a quantum mechanical mechanism.

Both you and Abbie Smith could be correct. Her observations could be correct and your analysis visa-vie randomness could also be correct. Random Mutation would turn out to be impotent if, in fact, non-random quantum effects are fundamental to life at the microscopic level.

I would have thought you and CSC fellow, Henry F. Schaefer III, would have discussed something like this.

You guys are ridiculous. Abbie accuses Behe of being ignorant and then starts chest thumping that a pre-grad who never took a biochem class owned him (even though she constantly messes up, like being completely ignorant of the fact that viroporins have not been shown experimentally to have 5 proteins).

I think his reference to you as a pre-grad student serves only to make himself feel better. I was only a junior in my undergraduate years when I read the great humor novel "Darwin's Black Box." Even as an undergrad I could refute all of his points. Perhaps in ten years since DBB Behe has been able to write something that only people accepted to grad school or beyond could refute!

While I think his remark about "Mean girls" could easily be seen as sexist, it is more evidence for Behe's inappropriate use of analogies.

You know, the typical decently well-educated layman (especially one with a technical background in an area in which design itself figures prominently, such as engineering) sees contending arguments on both sides of the question. Perhaps he can't decide based purely on the scientific arguments themselves. So he has to use other criteria. One of them would be to evaluate which side comes across as a bunch of arrogant, flaming a-holes, filled with seething contempt for the opinions of others. And then he has to decide accordingly. This is one of the reasons ID is not going away. You guys ought to think about that...Which is exactly why scientists treat them with bile. Instead of getting involved in the scientific process; generating data and submitting papers, they would rather involve themselves in a public opinion competition. Rather than courting the scientific community in good faith, they preemptively blast every bit of the scientific process for being dogmatic. That's why every scientist who's associated themselves with ID has effectively wasted all credibility they might have. When your arguments are shown to be wrong, supported by a wealth of evidence, and you can just hand-wave it away saying no amount of data can change your opinion; you're not doing science. There's no reason then, that we should have to respect you as scientists, and I believe that was part of the tone of Abbie's first response to Behe's book. He stated things that were easily shown to be false, and Abbie called him on it. His response was to focus on the tone because he couldn't refute the content.If they don't respect evidence, there's no reason respect their conclusions.

Thank you for misrepresenting the importance of quantum physics in biological systems.

Applying quantum mechanics to biology is nothing new. Read The Double Helix sometime: once you look past all the sexist wisecracks about how Rosalind Franklin would look so much better if she'd just do something with her hair, you'll find that people were trying to use quantum mechanics to predict which DNA bases would stick together. Linus Pauling's application of quantum physics to chemical bonds revolutionized the field and spread throughout the organic chemistry curriculum — during World War II. Not exactly shocking news in the year Two Thousand and Seven.

The discovery that molecule-scale electron delocalization is important for photosynthetic energy transfer is exactly as shocking as the electronic resonance of benzene, which Pauling discovered in 1931. Interesting, yes; related to quantum consciousness, no. We're not talking about a whole chloroplast existing in some coherent state.

On top of that, the claim "Experiments have shown quantum effects aren't random" is — I don't know a nicer way of putting this — a travesty of an entire field of physics.

When creationist claims about quantum physics are not too vague to understand, they inevitably show a failure to appreciate the impossibility of local hidden-variable theories, or some other fundamental aspect of the physical laws.

Excuse me for not taking the time to fully explain who I am and my opinions of you and your posts.

First of all, as to your recent response to Behe I think was excellent and appropriate. Behe should be compelled to apologize, but I wouldn't recommend any breath holding over it.

As to Creeky Belly's attempt at spin. From day one, I have been impressed with your explanation and apparent understanding of HIV. It is obvious that your analysis has been devastating. Nick Matze doesn't hold back if he thinks an analysis is wrong even if it attacks ID. Nick's endorsement pretty much sealed the deal for me. I am in no position to question your analysis of the biological situation. I presume it is correct.

The only value I can add to the conversation comes from my engineering background and from spending a year trying to understand the details of ID from an atheist's point of view.

The vast bulk of Intelligent Design is religious bunk. I am a vocal critic of Dembski, Wells and the Discovery Institute. It have been amused and impressed with how you have become a large thorn in their side. You appear disciplined enough to stick with what you know and passionate enough to let 'em have it.

I hope you continue.

I have spent over a year participating in debates at Telic Thoughts. They are well aware of my distrust of, and distaste for, the ID Movement. However, I have attempted to formulate a semi-legitimate hypothesis based on the "scientific" presumptions ID proponents are making. I call it the Third Choice.

Dembski referenced Stapp in his expert witness report for the Dover trial. That is why I am attempting to bring up the name to Behe. It would be interesting to me if Behe attempted to denounce this as woo. If he did, I am sure you would all like to hear his reasoning as to why.

Penrose and Dr. Hameroff have jointly proposed biological use of quantum effects.

Penrose is way out of his field when he writes about consciousness. Here are some comments by Scott Aaronson on that topic. Daniel Dennett also gives it the skeptical treatment in his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

Here are the videos from Beyond Belief 2006. Hameroff presents his and Penrose's ideas in Session 4. Have a look, and see how he gets raked over the coals in the Q&A session after his talk (about 22 minutes in). The physicists see problems. The biologists, especially neurobiologists, see problems. Even philosophers see problems.

I haven't even read Stapp. My understanding of Quantum Mechanics comes from Sir Rodger Penrose (modeled Black Holes along with Stephen Hawking).You could read Feynman and it could still come out nonsense when you quote it. Your knowledge of quantum mechanics has found to be lacking, especially with quantum random generators and entanglement. But let's not get dragged off topic.The vast bulk of Intelligent Design is religious bunk. I am a vocal critic of Dembski, Wells and the Discovery Institute. It have been amused and impressed with how you have become a large thorn in their side. You appear disciplined enough to stick with what you know and passionate enough to let 'em have it.We agree on this, if you associate yourself with this group you set yourself up for failure. When you stick to the same arguments when you've been shown to be wrong, seems to be the hallmark that irritates scientists the most.

I appreciate that you are actually trying to test your hypothesis, but it, along with the information on your website, is just nonsense. It isn't even coherent.I also obtained a copy of the paper you tout "Non-local correlations between separated neural networks", so if you want to know the content, let me know. It's interesting, but the author's of the paper stretch the conclusions of their experiment, like I thought, way beyond what the data supports.

In this paper, Hagan, Hameroff and Tuszynski argued that my calculation must be flawed because the decoherence timescales that I derived decrease as you lower the temperature of the brain, whereas you might intuitively expect the opposite.

The point they overlooked is that as soon as you drop the absolute temperature by about 10%, below 0 Celsius, your brain freezes and the decoherence time grows dramatically.

The slight decrease in decoherence time for tiny temperature reductions simply reflects the fact that the scattering cross section grows as you lower the temperature, just as slow neutrons have larger cross section than fast ones in a nuclear reactor. [Link removed, bold added.]

Count on Behe to move the goalposts by attempting to obscure what is actually simple fact. By never presenting a logical, independently determinable "minimal IC system", it's clear he's never going to present a specific case that actually subject to experimental evaluation.

At the time he first published, I thought the Behe might be accessible to rational argument, but over time it's become clear that he's the thrall of a wacky idea that won't let him go. I suspect that everyone has at least one nutty idea in their heads and the best we can hope is that any of our "peculiar notions" don't manifest publicly and/or professionally. So, pity him, for his "imp of the perverse" is riding him into ignominy.

You guys are ridiculous. Abbie accuses Behe of being ignorant and then starts chest thumping that a pre-grad who never took a biochem class owned him (even though she constantly messes up, like being completely ignorant of the fact that viroporins have not been shown experimentally to have 5 proteins)

I find it rather amusing that this particular troll takes this tactic. Instead of addressing the points that ERV made, he roots around for a single instance of a mistake.

Perhaps he hasn't bothered to remember recently becuase his head is swollen with self importance (which typically means too far up his ass to know what's going on), but the fact is, ERV and the rest are all human. We make mistakes.

So while he can find a few instances of error what should be kept in mind is that such things are to be expected. The difference is that, unlike Dembski, Behe, et al. ERV has not written entire books full of erronious statements, outdated information that was shown false decades ago, bad math, logical fallacies, etc....

So instead of trying to repudite themselves, it seems ID sympathizers like our anonymous commenter here would rather try to drag everyone else down in the mud.

My advice to ERV is to follow the axiom: "Do not argue with idiots. They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."

Hey! I have a novel idea!!!!! Now that you have read and perhaps re-read Behe's accounts, how about a cohesive, mature, intelligent, sober, comprehensive, unemotional scientific critique of the points he raises?

HOLY WOW MUTATION MAN!!!!!I am just THRILLED WITH THE PROSPECT OF SOMETHING LIKE THAT HAPPENING!!!!!!!

The last anon-- Weve got the link, thank you. I edited your comment to remove the massive (unnecessary) copy paste, as its hard enough to follow threads in blogger. And, if Behe can wait 10 weeks to respond to my essay, you can wait until I study for a test.

Thank you all for your support :)

Ive got a test to worry about now, and then Ill try to respond to your alls comments appropriately.

sounds to me like you have a “chip on your shoulder” I’m not sure what your history with a barbie doll has to do with the topics at hand, or whether behe is “sexist” who cares about your personal vendetta. For all i know you may have tossed barbie for ken because you identify with him more than barbie in certain “special“ ways. that might even explain some of your interest in hiv research. and you know what? thats your business. and i do very much wish you great success in your endeavors to kill a hideous disease. what concerns me is this. the preponderance of information in your posts seems to indicate you may be “bitter” about certain societal conditions that have effected you personally in ways you dont prefer. You may even have a hair up your butt about organized religion. I have noticed this anti-religious sentiment among various actually famous “scientists”. what i am getting at is this. i dont think any responsible individual working in science or even in a scientific philosophy such as macro-evolution should allow their personal philosophical bents (whatever they may be) to cause them to distort the significance of the results of their research. and in a way that asserts that anybody in all sciences (let alone their specialty) has anywhere near the amount of cumulative evidence that real science should require in order to claim it has any kind of a meaningfully comprehensive explanations or handle on the problems regarding “chemicals to living ecosystems.”

Anonymous wrote:"You guys are ridiculous. Abbie accuses Behe of being ignorant and then starts chest thumping that a pre-grad who never took a biochem class owned him (even though she constantly messes up, like being completely ignorant of the fact that viroporins have not been shown experimentally to have 5 proteins)."

Given this paper, who's "ridiculous" and "completely ignorant," you and Behe, or Abbie and us?

Amazingly, Behe still hasn't closed the comments on his alleged response to ERV. So smokey and I are having a tag-team takedown of someone who calls himself Tarnaak. It's pretty standard IDiot fare so far. All hat and no cattle.

Anyone following the comments hungry for some biochemistry objections before ERV gets around to it should check the comments to Behe's blog post again. Smokey posted a very comprehensive (and irate) dissection of Behe's errors.

Dear Behe and company: Search pubmed, wikipedia and google AT LEAST on every claim you make before you make it, for God's sake. I'm not even asking that you read journals like real scientists, just use a few minutes on a web browser to avoid making rudimentary mistakes.

Anonymous writes:You know, the typical decently well-educated layman (especially one with a technical background in an area in which design itself figures prominently, such as engineering) sees contending arguments on both sides of the question. Perhaps he can't decide based purely on the scientific arguments themselves. So he has to use other criteria. One of them would be to evaluate which side comes across as a bunch of arrogant, flaming a-holes, filled with seething contempt for the opinions of others. And then he has to decide accordingly.

Interesting. If so highly educated a person as, say, an engineer, has to rely on the attitude of those making an argument when deciding who might be correct, it seems to me that the engineer may not be as educated as the anonymous engineer seems to think...

YOU CHICKEN SHIT!!!!!! YOU IGNORANT BASTARD!!!!!! YOU WONT EVEN ALLOW INTELLIGENT SCRUTINY TO ENTER YOUR STUPID ASS FORUM PAST THE POINT WHERE YOU CAN FUCKING FEEL COMFORTABLE ADDRESSING THE REAL ISSUES YOU PRETEND TO MASTER!!!! YOU DUMB BASTARD!!!!!! YOU PATHETIC ASSHOLE. YOU AND YOURS CONTINUE TO EDIT OUT ANY CRITICISM OF YOUR VASTLY UNSUBSTANTIATED ASSERTIONS THAT YOU ARE UNWILLING AND OR UNABLE TO ANSWER. YOUR PERSONAL AGENDA TAKES PRECEDENCE OVER TRUTH IN YOUR HUGELY LIMITED MIND. LET ME TRY AGAIN SHIT HEAD!!!!!

Who the fuck is that, and what the fuck are they on about? If you're the guy who was sarcastically requesting rational discussion a while ago, the irony meter is off the chart.

Also, the Behe blog 'refutation' has some ignorant tripe on it again. I can't get my amazon account to work, someone else post again. The goal posts have moved once more, predictably. This time, with brand new, different pseudoscience.

Pharyngula started a mutating blog meme that got my attention (it's a good one). I don't generally do memes, but today I made an exception. As a regular reader of your blog, I decided to tag you to continue the meme. Don't let it go extinct.

Keep in mind Behe represents the Christian Reconstructionist / Dominionist crowd at the Discovery Institute. They want to roll back the clock a couple of centuries (or millenia...) to where women knew their place and didn't go to school...at all. (And keep their mouths shut in public and wear burkas and the whole Christian Taliban bit.)

Actually, I think he just called all of us 'Mean Girls'. I suppose we deserve it. I mean, I didn't know that not inviting Behe to our slumber parties caused him to stay home sobbing himself to sleep while watching "Bratz: The Movie".

"Who the fuck is that, and what the fuck are they on about? If you're the guy who was sarcastically requesting rational discussion a while ago, the irony meter is off the chart."

Dan, you asshole. what difference does it make if someone has what many individuals may claim to be a rational comment, but yet (even if this is the case) seems irrational in a subsequent post???? YOU dumb fuck. Reality is what it is regardless of shifts in human perceptions or emotionally charged comments made over the course of various conceptual expressions made by THE VASTLY UNEXPLAINED FUCKINGLY EMBARRASINGLY HUGELY UNDEFINED DESCRIBED OR EXPLAINED PHENOMENA WE HAVE THE FUCKING RATIONAL TO CALL "CONCEPTUALIZING INTELLIGENCIA" YOU STUPID FUCKING "GODDAMMIT I (OR ANY OTHER ENTITY) HAVE ALL THE FUCKING RELEVANT ANSWERS TO THE UNDEFINABLY VAST ARRAY OF QUESTIONS THAT ANY FUCKING IDIOT WOULD WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IN ORDER TO BUY INTO THE STUPID FUCKING ASSERTIONS "PROJECTED INTO THE INGNORANT MASSES FUCKING THROATS" BY THE GODDAMN PHILOSOPHISTS (MACROEVOLUTIONISTS) WHO (UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLY) CONTINUE TO DOMINATE REAL SCIENCE WITH THEIR STUPID ASS ASSERTIONS, DRIVEN BY THEIR PERSONAL PHILOSOPHICALLY INSPIRED OPINIONS." LOOK AT THE LIKES of DICK-HEAD DAWKINS. AND THE HISTORY OF HIS PHILOSOPHICAL RANTS!!!!!! (you dumb fuck)

Brilliant asshole!!!!!Your comment really "touches" on the core of the issues at hand. Go back and watch your fucking tv set and continue to feel warm and fuzzy about the BULLSHIT YOU EAT AND MAYBE EVEN PERPETUATE. YOU DUMB SHIT.

"Um. Wow. The title of this post is apparently correct: Abbie, you *do* bring out the "best" in creationists.

8:06 AM"

What is a "creationist" and how many informed individuals give a shit (take a poll you dumb-fuck)? And what the fuck gives you the right to declare me a "creationist"? (you fucking simpleton) What gives you and the "macro-evolutionary psuedo-scientists (and weak minded philosophers) the "priviledged" position of authority to SLAP responsibility of the presently demonstrated failures your vastly inadequate assertions on any group of individuals that have some "assertions" of their own? (probably vastly better substantiated than your own bullshit!!!!!!) The "philosophical space" is fucking unlimited in the discussion of "chemicals to ecosystems". And any "partially thinking" sophomoric "asshole" being currently brainwashed in the fucking "scientific" (god damn it what a perverse use of the term) community just has to have at-least a suspicion of the dogmatic "horseshit" that CONTINUES to predominate and perpetuate the absolutely fucking unfounded philosophically based FICTION that continues to BULLY it's way into social conciousness as fucking FACT!!!!!! Shame on you Dawkins and all you other sympathetic assholes to that kind of VASTLY UNSCIENTIFIC CAUSE!!!!!!!! IF I WERE YOUR PROFESSOR I WOULD FLUNK THE FUCK OUT OF ALL OF YOU!!!!!!

My appeal to you all-take the expletives out and consider the array of messages presented here. You just, in any intellectual sense, disagree. Somebody claiming to bring out the "best" or "worst" in the "creationists" is absolutely doing nothing more than strapping their own hugely inadequately scientifically supported assertions on a "pop-culturally defined" icon of negative popularity called "creationists".